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It's only in times where I feel pretty stressed or feel I am not able to keep track of everything/am afraid I'll forget something, that I might make a list. Then the act of making the list makes me feel better, so I no longer have to fret about keeping track of it in my head.

I could not relate to this more, and I could not have said it better!!

J solidarity

EJCC: "The Big Questions in my life right now: 1) What am I willing to live with? 2) What do I have to live with? 3) What can I change for the better?"
Coriolis: "Is that the ESTJ Serenity Prayer?"

I know the stereotype is of Js doing this. I do it to help me remember things that I might forget otherwise but which are very important. Sometimes write it on my hand if it is very very important.

I was wondering if other Ps do it.

I use lists, Post-It Notes, tape, several different bright colors of permanent markers, or even a shard of a paper plate - I don't care what it is; if I need to remember something then non-living objects near me are at high-risk of being "tattooed."

My reasoning for this is multi-faceted.
I have ADHD, and if I make a task tangible then it is more prone to becoming an active artifact that my mind will assign resources to.
That's kind of the reason behind the bold colored permanent markers - what I am looking for? Oh! the one with 3 big, blue question marks on it!!!
Third, I got over using paper as my sole source of papyrus decades ago.
I'm shameless about re-purposing anything that can be written on if I need to complete a task that is above a given minimal level of importance.
It's easy to find the corner of a cereal box, and 1/4 of a paper plate all mixed up with a bunch of sheets of 8.5" X 11" paper.

Originally Posted by EJCC

I'm not a P (obviously) but the Ps I know -- especially my INTP dad and ENFP friend -- constantly make to-do lists. They probably make them more often than I do, make them more effectively than I do, and stick to them better than I do.

That's an interesting observation, EJCC!

Originally Posted by EJCC

I think it's because even though I naturally have a to-do list in my head all the time, they don't, so they've had to train themselves to work that way?

As a fan of ESTJ's, I must say of all people MBTI types, if I had to name one as the "incarnation of productive activity" it would be ESTJ.
My Father is a machine.
In his hayday he literally terrified people at the sheer mass of work he could accomplish in a given time period, as compared to his peers.
As an ESTP, and as his son, I have alot of that fire in me, but my incantation of "the gift" is to do the most with the least on the spot - and being able to do it again in a completely different context the next day, and so on and so forth.
Give me a $1,000,000 project to manage for 5 years and I'll fall asleep in boredom trying to remember it exists.
Give me a $1,000,000 to create an information system in 6 months or less, all of it with less than compatabile hardware and software interfaces - and I'll go bonkers with joy at the chance to accomplish what others say is unachievable - just for the sake of doing it, and just for the sake of showing how the rules that many organizations bind themselves with over time are inevitably their own undoing, until a crisis calls for allowing a resourceful outsider perform organizational CPR on the dying behemoth.

Originally Posted by ptgatsby

Yup, I do it all the time, and have for a very long time.

I can't say the lists always get done, but I find that most Ps make lists!

I keep a list until it has three or less items on it, and then transfer those @ their current level of priority to a new list.
I e-mail myself.
I text myself.
Any bit of useful information I come across will be assimilated, and then transformed into what I need it to be later.
I'm an information hoarder but I don't have any bookcases.

Originally Posted by Seymour

Pretty much never for me.

That's because you're the Archbishop of MENSA, Seymour.
Stop showing off and making us all look bad.
You just hurt my I.L.A.C.!

All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.
Chapter IV, p. 448. - Adam Smith, Book 3, The Wealth of Nations

whether or not you credit psychoanalysis itself, the fact remains that we all must, to the greatest extent possible, understand one another's minds as our own; the very survival of humanity has always depended on it. - Open Culture

I keep a planner and write down important things and events, and things for that day I shouldn't forget about. Assuming I look at the planner, I remember things. I don't always know how to fit everything into the time I have though, so sometimes I'll go shopping for example, and then not have enough time to study. Or I'll forget that I have to eat, and that that requires cooking and such. I might not be a j. But that's why it's not J. (Likewise for i and f, but that's another story.)

As a fan of ESTJ's, I must say of all people MBTI types, if I had to name one as the "incarnation of productive activity" it would be ESTJ.

It's funny -- I never think of myself that way, probably because I, like everyone else, tend to focus on what I don't succeed at, more than what I do. But I think it's probably true.

Using my dad as an example (again, since an INTP in an executive position is probably the best example of a P getting him/herself organized!): I visited his office awhile ago and found the Cult of Done Manifesto in a frame on his desk. I read through it and the whole time was thinking "Yeah... that's a given... yeah I know... are there any new ideas here??" And then I realized that the manifesto was pure Te.

My Father is a machine.
In his hayday he literally terrified people at the sheer mass of work he could accomplish in a given time period, as compared to his peers.

Every time you describe him, I'm incredibly impressed by your dad. He sounds like a force to be reckoned with.

Is(/was?) he an 8?

As an ESTP, and as his son, I have alot of that fire in me, but my incantation of "the gift" is to do the most with the least on the spot - and being able to do it again in a completely different context the next day, and so on and so forth.
Give me a $1,000,000 project to manage for 5 years and I'll fall asleep in boredom trying to remember it exists.
Give me a $1,000,000 to create an information system in 6 months or less, all of it with less than compatabile hardware and software interfaces - and I'll go bonkers with joy at the chance to accomplish what others say is unachievable - just for the sake of doing it, and just for the sake of showing how the rules that many organizations bind themselves with over time are inevitably their own undoing, until a crisis calls for allowing a resourceful outsider perform organizational CPR on the dying behemoth.

This is so interesting, and so completely different from how I operate. I was never a person who was motivated to do things by hearing that they had never been done, or couldn't be done.

Stuff like this reminds me of why the MBTI is useful in the workplace!

EJCC: "The Big Questions in my life right now: 1) What am I willing to live with? 2) What do I have to live with? 3) What can I change for the better?"
Coriolis: "Is that the ESTJ Serenity Prayer?"

I keep a planner and write down important things and events, and things for that day I shouldn't forget about. Assuming I look at the planner, I remember things. I don't always know how to fit everything into the time I have though, so sometimes I'll go shopping for example, and then not have enough time to study. Or I'll forget that I have to eat, and that that requires cooking and such. I might not be a j. But that's why it's not J. (Likewise for i and f, but that's another story.)

This is somewhat related but mainly I'm just curious - including eating into plans or even lists...? I knew someone who often said "I forgot to eat" or "I forget to eat" or "I didn't eat anything yet." I never understood how people can forget to eat. What I mean is - you feel that you need food, that unpleasant feeling in your stomach, the lack of energy and brain that doesn't work well, how can you forget to eat? That person wasn't able to answer beyond "I don't know."

This is somewhat related but mainly I'm just curious - including eating into plans or even lists...? I knew someone who often said "I forgot to eat" or "I forget to eat" or "I didn't eat anything yet." I never understood how people can forget to eat. What I mean is - you feel that you need food, that unpleasant feeling in your stomach, the lack of energy and brain that doesn't work well, how can you forget to eat? That person wasn't able to answer beyond "I don't know."

Your stomach doesn't necessarily work like clockwork; the times I've forgotten to eat, have been when I just wasn't hungry around mealtime. I'm almost never so hungry that my stomach is growling when it's time for me to eat, so it'll be several hours after when my stomach growls and I go "Oh crap, I forgot to eat earlier".

It's also generally when I'm so busy that I get scatterbrained and forget to check my schedule throughout the day.

EJCC: "The Big Questions in my life right now: 1) What am I willing to live with? 2) What do I have to live with? 3) What can I change for the better?"
Coriolis: "Is that the ESTJ Serenity Prayer?"

This is somewhat related but mainly I'm just curious - including eating into plans or even lists...? I knew someone who often said "I forgot to eat" or "I forget to eat" or "I didn't eat anything yet." I never understood how people can forget to eat. What I mean is - you feel that you need food, that unpleasant feeling in your stomach, the lack of energy and brain that doesn't work well, how can you forget to eat? That person wasn't able to answer beyond "I don't know."

Originally Posted by EJCC

Your stomach doesn't necessarily work like clockwork; the times I've forgotten to eat, have been when I just wasn't hungry around mealtime. I'm almost never so hungry that my stomach is growling when it's time for me to eat, so it'll be several hours after when my stomach growls and I go "Oh crap, I forgot to eat earlier".

It's also generally when I'm so busy that I get scatterbrained and forget to check my schedule throughout the day.

^ Partly this; but I'm usually not so frequently hungry when I'm at home and always hungry when I'm at school or work. Just a weird part of my psychology. So it's more like when I'm at home I won't think about eating, and then when I go somewhere I'll realize I'm hungry and I haven't eaten. So in planning my day sometimes I won't think about the fact that I have to eat at home (to avoid spending money out) in between times away from home. If I can get into a routine, like I know on Tuesdays I'm at school all day and then have to go straight to work, I can plan accordingly by having something at home I can quickly eat, or something like that. And just to be on the safe side whenever I know I'll be out for a long time I bring snacks. (I try to always have snacks because I have a high metabolism so I have to eat often.)

Speaking of which, I'm hungry right now...darn hunger in the middle of the night.

@EJCC, @greenfairy I think this may be related to metabolism then - I am hungry often. I haven't thought about that before, I went as far as "poor quality food." Even after a really good dinner, in 3-4 hours I'll be hungry again, and in 5-6 hours my stomach would be growling. If I eat something little as sausage, I would be hungry in an hour and 2-3 small steaks, I'd be hungry in 2 hours or so. I'm also very thin... Good catch greenfairy.

nope, but sometimes i write an item to my phones to do list that i need to buy from grocery store and its the kind of item that i easily forget(like toilet paper, i have beet forgetting to buy toilet paper for 8 or 9 days(and counting), even tho i wrote it on my phone..), which might sometimes help. but usually if it helps, its not a list i need to look at, i just more easily remember it because i wrote it down, since i can more easily remember writing something down and i can remember what i wrote down without reading it.

"Where wisdom reigns, there is no conflict between thinking and feeling."
— C.G. Jung